Recollection of Emerald in Briny Deeps
by Selinawen
Summary: Do you believe in Merpeople? Well, Arthur Kirkland most certainly don't, until he had a fateful meeting with not one, but two Mermen. How will Arthur's life change then? Mermaid AU, Hagure/Stray trio (Alfred, Arthur, Kiku). Collaboration fic with Waty.


Prologue: ~An unexpected encounter~

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In a town near the sea, in a little house, far away from the other houses; lives a man. A very lonely man...

The man with golden hair woke up on his desk, as he opened his emerald eyes, he looked around to find that he had fallen asleep again while reading newspapers. He gave a quick look at the clock in this room - 2 pm - He stretched a little and remembers the last time he checked the clock last night, or well... This morning... it was 5 am... Yes, he stayed up way too late but even so, nobody would ever blame him for this; one of the only advantages of living alone in this big house.

He walked to the kitchen and opened the fridge...

"Empty again hm... Alright then... Guessing it's time to go buy food once again..."

At those words, he walked out of the room and left the house. Checked the mailbox outside before that. Nothing was in the box for ''Arthur Kirkland'. Arthur, because it was his name, was not really surprised from this. The only mails he ever got were promotional offers, nothing really interesting. Arthur then started to walk to the supermarket not far from his home. It was your average supermarket, no many products in the display, but Arthur could find what he wanted anyway. He was never difficult to please when it was about food. In fact, he could eat everything. But since he was not a good cook, he always found himself buying takeaways so he wouldn't bother with cooking. He also found all the newspapers he want in this supermarket. He usually buys them all, even if only a very little number of articles interest him...

Once Arthur has gotten everything he wanted and paid, he made his way back, but instead of returning to his home, he takes another direction; the beach. He has his very special spot there, a part of the beach often ignored by the other humans living here. He can spend a lot of time there, sometime hours, just looking at the sea, doing nothing.

His way of living would probably make many people scream at him: going to sleep very late, waking up late as well, sometimes in the afternoon, eating only food already made, never cooking... Despite living near the sea, the man doesn't swim or do any kind of sport... But Arthur does not care. He was living alone after all so he was free to do whatever he wanted. Even if someday his body may break from this, he did not care.

Once on the beach, Arthur put the bags of food on the sand, and looked at the sea. He had some kind of "admiration" for the sea. This sea, at the same time so pretty; mostly at this moment, when the sun set and the water become a pretty shade of orange; yet dangerous and deadly...

Arthur sighed a little, wondering what kind of secrets the sea could hide... He was scared, yet curious to know what could be hidden in the deep parts of the sea, even he already saw what the sea could do when it was angry... He walked, unknowingly, close to the water until his shoes touched it, lost in his thoughts.

He never noticed two strange shadows moving underwater and getting closer to him...

"OOOOHHH IT'S A HUMAN!"

"Ahh Indeed it is…"

Arthur broke out of his thoughts as he heard voices below him. That was strange, he was standing by the sea, there's no way that people are… He looked down nevertheless and that was when he saw it; two men looking at him with a curious expression on their faces.

"Let's be friends, human~!" One of them said cheerfully. He has short golden hair with a curl sticking out at the left with bright sky blue eyes.

The other man nodded with a smile on his face, he has short raven hair in a hime-cut with dark expressionless brown eyes.

"Who the bloody hell are…" Arthur started to say but was cut off as the two men pulled him down into the sea.

"W-WAIT NO STOP…I CAN'T SWIM!"

Arthur screamed as he was forcefully pulled into the dreadful sea, by two men that he doesn't even know. He struggled for a moment and managed to grab onto one of the men (the blond one) desperately for support; that was when he noticed something different.

The lower half of the man's body feels slippery and…are those scales? Arthur turned his head down only to see that the man doesn't have legs, instead, a fish tail replaced what could have been legs.

Horrified, Arthur pushed the man away only to fall into the second man's arms.

"Is something the matter here, Mister Human?" The man with raven hair asked, tilting his head a little.

"I think he'd just realised that we're Mermen, Kiku~" The blond replied, an amused expression on his face.

The man with raven hair – Kiku – turned up to the blond and said "But I had expected the humans to be excited upon meeting one of us still, Master Alfred"

"There're quite horrifying tales about us actually, maybe it's why?" The blond – Alfred – explained to him, before adding "And also, I've told you so many times to leave out the 'Master', it makes people think that I do horrible things to you" he puffed his cheeks out a little after that.

"I apologist…"

"Horrifying tales?" Arthur was thinking. More like all the stories about merpeople are stories where they take humans into water, often against the victims' will of course, and drown them, then eat the remains of their bodies... A slow and painful death... Many of the legends and stories he'd read about those creatures were like this. Most of the time, their victims were dying and the mermaids were laughing at this, proud of what they did...

And here, Arthur was in water, surrounded by two... Mermen... he could say? Who has pulled him into the water. How in the world could he stay calm or happy like the one with raven hair was thinking? How could he enjoy something that would take his life away?

The waves were already pushing them far away from the beach and soon Arthur couldn't feel the ground under his feet anymore.

Arthur was unable to swim, he was already doing his best to keep his head out of the water but this was already draining all his energy and he would soon be unable to continue this... And so... He would drown...

And there is no way he would ever try to ask for help or cling to those... Sea monsters...

"Monsters"... That's what they were in Arthur's eyes now, and probably, they were really monsters after all... They were speaking the same language as him and the top of their body looked human, but it was all. The rest of their body was not human and their behaviour were like the one of monsters... They also seemed to enjoy to watch him panic and drown... If they really cared for humans and wanted to be friends, they would notice that Arthur was drowning and probably save him. But no, they were doing nothing else than looking and talking among themselves, leaving him alone to die there.

Arthur is already getting weaker from the struggle against water, it was getting harder for him to stay up and he could feel the seawater going into his mouth at times. The voice of the monsters were getting difficult to hear and his sight was getting blurry... He was no longer able to keep himself up. Closing his eyes slowly, watching the sun for the last time... he let himself sink in the cold dark sea...

Not that he wouldn't mind dying but... He never wanted a death like this...

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Authors' notes:

Selina : This is actually my first time doing a collaboration of a fic with someone else, I hope you all enjoyed it owo/ This chapter is mostly written by Waty so more credit to her here~ owo/ Cover art is by her as well owo/ (cover art isn't showing for now but soon hopefully owo; )

Waty : I-I don't even know what to say in fact... First time I work on a fic seriously and mostly a collaboration fic so yeah, hoping people will like it ^^ Gosh... I am so lame at author's notes I don't even


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